The one where Maree posts links & gets a wee bit ranty....

The One Where Maree Posts Links & Gets A Wee Bit Ranty by Maree Anderson (Duh, who else?) for Writers Gone Wild

Hi y'all,

You are soooo lucky! Did you notice on the sidebar that one of our new Wild Women has volunteered to blog with me on Thursdays? Which means that you get to put up with me again this week, and then you get a break to hear from the lovely Robin Wright. (Don't worry, I'm not at all offended by your squeals of joy *g*)

So, what's up in Maree's world that might be worth sharing? Meh. Not much.

I do have a lovely new cover that I'd love to share with y'all but it's not quite 'official' yet so I'm not allowed. *cue major pouting* Maybe next time. If Anne doesn't beat me to it *g*

I have a hot excerpt from Scent Of A Man coming up in the new Eye On Romance Sizzling Scenes eNewsletter on 16th April. BTW, this excerpt differs from the excerpts up on the Red Sage website and my personal website, so if you're a subscriber I hope you like it!

Other than that, I guess we could discuss the train-wreck that became how NOT to respond to a review over at Big Al's Books and Pals, courtesy of self-pubbed author Jacqueline Howett. (Warning. The comments section may disturb gentle readers... especially those who have an unabiding horror of bad grammar and poor sentence construction.)

Yikes. Dropping the f-bomb and spewing abuse is hardly gonna endear you to the reviewer or his blog commenters, let alone potential buyers of your book. And wouldn't you know it, this whole hot mess has migrated to the Twitterverse and the Amazon discussion boards. Gee, how on earth could that have happened? *shakes head in despair at the state of the world today*

Please. Take Aunty Maree's advice and if you really feel compelled to leave a comment about a not-so-hot review of your book, then fergodsakes do a Carla Cassidy.... like Carla did with her response to a review of her book Pregnesia on the Smart Bitches blog. She handled it with such grace and wit, that she had people rushing off to buy her book and coming back to comment that they'd done so. Now that, people, is a class act.

We could also touch on whether you're a complete nut-job to turn down an OMG FREAKING HUUUUUGE advance in favor of self-publishing your own books. But I reckon Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler might have already said it all on Konrath's blog interview with Eisler.

On the other end of the spectrum, there's Amanda Hocking, who made an OMG FREAKING HUUUUUGE bundle of money from self-publishing her own books. And who has now accepted an OMG FREAKING HUUUUUGE contract deal with St Martins Press.

Good move? She seems to think so -- you can read what Amanda has to say about it here.

And she's keeping her options open, too. You go, girl!

And on a more personal note, what do you think of the social media site LinkedIn? I was finally convinced to join up a few months ago and already I'm seriously considering disabling my account. Why? Well, let me tell you why.

I decided early on I wouldn't be as active on LinkedIn as I am on Facebook and Twitter, simply because I don't have the time. So I set up my profile, sucked in my blog and Twitter feeds, and left it at that. I did a couple of recommendations when asked. I joined a writers group where I lurk more than get involved on a regular basis. And I pretty much accept anyone who wants to link with me.

And here's the thing. Numerous people who've asked to link with me wait till I accept and then immediately subscribe me to their newsletters -- the majority of which I am in no way, shape, or form, interested in. (To put it politely.) Then, I'm forced to waste my time figuring out how to unsubscribe and, to add insult to injury, often cannot unsubscribe unless I give a reason for wanting to do so. DUH! How about because I didn't sign up for your newsletter and it's bloody rude to do it without asking? How about, I don't sign you up for MY newsletter without asking your permission, so is it too much for you to extend the same courtesy to me?

Apparently so. Apparently many people treat LinkedIn as a one-stop shop to harvest emails from people and then spam them with their newsletters.

Don't do it. Please. Because even if you DO have a newsletter that might interest me, I'm that bloody-minded person who'll not buy anything from you and will block your emails and website IP address because you annoyed me by signing me up without permission.

As Jenn said yesterday: Stick a fork in me, I'm done. Woohoo!

See you in a fortnight....

Be careful out there!

Maree